"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beautious mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in't!" ~ Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I
The year of our Ford is 632 (A.D. 2540 for those of you who do not know) and the world is perfect. There are no wars and no poverty. Art, culture, family, literature, philosophy, and religion no longer exist. Sex is a social activity, rather than kept behind closed doors. Soma is used everyday in order to stay happy. Babies are produced in factories and children are encouraged to participate in erotic activity. Lifestyle is determined by castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon (all of which can be split into Plus and Minus).
Welcome to Aldous Huxley's version of the future!
Enter the lives of Bernard Marx, Lenina Crowne, Helmholtz Watson, and John the Savage; four humans who are trying to make sense of their place in the world.
First, there is Bernard Marx. An Alpha-Plus pyschologist, Bernard questions the way he lives his life. Soma, in his opinion, should never be used. He wishes for anger, wishes for loneliness, wishes for feeling. In a world of happiness, of pleasure, Bernard finds himself unsatisfied. He feels 'more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety...much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before.' The cure for that should have been soma, but that was how he felt with the soma. While Bernard is an Alpha-Plus, he is still an outcast. For one, he is as short as one would be if they were in a lower caste. Another point is that he loves the sea, which is very wrong. People in this future are conditioned to hate nature. Due to these 'flaws', rumors are spread that he was administered doses of alcohol while being raised.
A Beta, Lenina Crowe is a vaccination-worker at the London Hatchery. Lenina, unlike Bernard, does not question the way she lives her life as much as Bernard does. There are times where she wonders whether or not something is right, but covers it up with the wonderful soma (as
most people in the future do). Her promiscuity is questioned early in the book. Fanny Crowe, her friend, is horrified at the idea of having only one person. Lenina admits that she is bored of Henry Foster; who would not be after four months of having him? She does question whether or not being promiscuous is the right thing, but she does not pursue it.
Helmholtz Watson is an Alpha-Plus and is a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering in the Department of Writing. Although he is very similar to Bernard, Helmholtz is not as cowardly. At one point in the book, he tells himself that 'he felt rather ashamed for his friend' and wished he would show a little more pride. Helmholtz also has many ladies, which Bernard is jealous of, but perfers not to have them. He wishes to keep his mind with his writing.
An outcast on the reservation and in society, John the Savage has a bitter outlook on life. He is the son of Linda, a Beta who was left on the Malpai Reservation in New Mexico. This created an advantage for him over the other children and adults there: he could read and write, be as civilized as he could be in a place like that. But this made him more of an outcast in this community, so much that he wanted to be able to join them as one. So when Lenina and Bernard arrived, his chance had come. He could go back with them to their civilized world. After his arrival, this society also made him an outcast. John hated this society that his mother often spoke of. He hated the way of life, especially Lenina's promiscuity. John does find a beacon of light in this place: Helmholtz Watson. Befriending him, John is able to discuss his feelings and writing with Helmholtz.
Many topics in this book will disgust you. You will be amazed at what this society can and will do. Thoughts like those in the book probably have never crossed your mind.
Did you ever think that a society would concentrate on sex and being happy all day every day? Did you ever think that the world would frown upon pregnancies and begin to manufacture babies? Did you ever think that a caste system would be the basis of a society? Did you ever think that death is a good thing? Did you ever think that growing old was the worst thing in the world? Did you ever think that romantic relationships, sexual competition, and marriage would no longer be neccessary, therefore obsolete? Did you ever think that being alone was a bad thing? Did you ever think that being promiscuous was applauded?
What do you think of the way babies are made in this ironic future? Epsilons, the lowest caste, are made dumb. The machine that rotates the oxygen in and out of the tube rotates slower, giving the brain less oxygen. Delta infants are shown books and flowers, then shocked with electricity for a few seconds. The books and flowers are then brought out, but the infants crawl away screaming. Hypnopaedia, sleep teaching, occurs in their early childhood. Children are taught that their own class is best for them. One example is:
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to...so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta because..." (Chapter 2, page 27-28)
There is one topic that you havenot heard of: soma.
Greek for 'body', soma is a powerful drug that users take to escape pain and bad memories with hallucinatory fantasies.
About Aldous Huxley
Born: July 26, 1894, in Surrey, England
Died: November 22, 1963, in Los Angeles, California
son of Leonard Huxley (editor of Cornhill magazine) and Julia Arnold (niece of poet and essayist Matthew Arnold); grandson of T.H. Huxley, the scientist; thus, he belonged to England's intellectual aristocracy
Other books by Huxley: Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), Point Counter Point (1928), Brave New World (1932, Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and many more.
When I began reading this book, I thought Oh. My. God. What kind of book is this? About halfway through this book, I concluded that there was something very wrong with this author. Promiscuous sex? Feelies? I was outright disgusted at what this book was talking about. I do not like science fiction novels, and I was beginning to tire of this one.
Then John the Savage arrived into the tale. I thought, here is someone that could change people's minds about how they are living their life. He even got Helmholtz Watson to join his side. I was jumping for joy inside: everyone loves Helmholtz; they are bound to join John's side. That is what I thought, even hoped for. Lenina was close to giving up her ways of being promiscuous and staying with John. But I was wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong!
Chapter sixteen, in my opinion, made the most sense. The most sense of why the world was, and may turn out, that way. Religion needed to be taken out, family needed to disappear. People needed to feel happy about where they were. Books explaining otherwise needed to be banned. Getting rid of those and everything else created stability. Stability meant no wars and no poverty. My conclusion of Mustapha Mond's explaination to John: Communism that actually works.
This book was placed on the "Outstanding Books for the College Bound" List because it makes you think, plain and simple. Would our world really turn out this way? A hidden meaning in this book is possibly Communism, seeing as one of the character's last name is Marx.('Coincidence? I think not!' ~Alexandra Krueger)
I would most definitely recommend this book, but not to anyone who is younger than a sophmore. Even then, I do not know if a sophmore should read it. It would all depend on a person's maturity. Everyone should read about Aldous Huxley's outlook on the futrue of our world.
Works Cited:
1. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperCollins, 1932.
"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world
That has such people in't!"
~ Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I
The year of our Ford is 632 (A.D. 2540 for those of you who do not know) and the world is perfect. There are no wars and no poverty. Art, culture, family, literature, philosophy, and religion no longer exist. Sex is a social activity, rather than kept behind closed doors. Soma is used everyday in order to stay happy. Babies are produced in factories and children are encouraged to participate in erotic activity. Lifestyle is determined by castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon (all of which can be split into Plus and Minus).
Welcome to Aldous Huxley's version of the future!
Enter the lives of Bernard Marx, Lenina Crowne, Helmholtz Watson, and John the Savage; four humans who are trying to make sense of their place in the world.
First, there is Bernard Marx. An Alpha-Plus pyschologist, Bernard questions the way he lives his life. Soma, in his opinion, should never be used. He wishes for anger, wishes for loneliness, wishes for feeling. In a world of happiness, of pleasure, Bernard finds himself unsatisfied. He feels 'more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety...much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before.' The cure for that should have been soma, but that was how he felt with the soma. While Bernard is an Alpha-Plus, he is still an outcast. For one, he is as short as one would be if they were in a lower caste. Another point is that he loves the sea, which is very wrong. People in this future are conditioned to hate nature. Due to these 'flaws', rumors are spread that he was administered doses of alcohol while being raised.
A Beta, Lenina Crowe is a vaccination-worker at the London Hatchery. Lenina, unlike Bernard, does not question the way she lives her life as much as Bernard does. There are times where she wonders whether or not something is right, but covers it up with the wonderful soma (as
most people in the future do). Her promiscuity is questioned early in the book. Fanny Crowe, her friend, is horrified at the idea of having only one person. Lenina admits that she is bored of Henry Foster; who would not be after four months of having him? She does question whether or not being promiscuous is the right thing, but she does not pursue it.
Helmholtz Watson is an Alpha-Plus and is a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering in the Department of Writing. Although he is very similar to Bernard, Helmholtz is not as cowardly. At one point in the book, he tells himself that 'he felt rather ashamed for his friend' and wished he would show a little more pride. Helmholtz also has many ladies, which Bernard is jealous of, but perfers not to have them. He wishes to keep his mind with his writing.
An outcast on the reservation and in society, John the Savage has a bitter outlook on life. He is the son of Linda, a Beta who was left on the Malpai Reservation in New Mexico. This created an advantage for him over the other children and adults there: he could read and write, be as civilized as he could be in a place like that. But this made him more of an outcast in this community, so much that he wanted to be able to join them as one. So when Lenina and Bernard arrived, his chance had come. He could go back with them to their civilized world. After his arrival, this society also made him an outcast. John hated this society that his mother often spoke of. He hated the way of life, especially Lenina's promiscuity. John does find a beacon of light in this place: Helmholtz Watson. Befriending him, John is able to discuss his feelings and writing with Helmholtz.
Many topics in this book will disgust you. You will be amazed at what this society can and will do. Thoughts like those in the book probably have never crossed your mind.
Did you ever think that a society would concentrate on sex and being happy all day every day? Did you ever think that the world would frown upon pregnancies and begin to manufacture babies? Did you ever think that a caste system would be the basis of a society? Did you ever think that death is a good thing? Did you ever think that growing old was the worst thing in the world? Did you ever think that romantic relationships, sexual competition, and marriage would no longer be neccessary, therefore obsolete? Did you ever think that being alone was a bad thing? Did you ever think that being promiscuous was applauded?
What do you think of the way babies are made in this ironic future? Epsilons, the lowest caste, are made dumb. The machine that rotates the oxygen in and out of the tube rotates slower, giving the brain less oxygen. Delta infants are shown books and flowers, then shocked with electricity for a few seconds. The books and flowers are then brought out, but the infants crawl away screaming. Hypnopaedia, sleep teaching, occurs in their early childhood. Children are taught that their own class is best for them. One example is:
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to...so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta because..." (Chapter 2, page 27-28)
There is one topic that you havenot heard of: soma.
Greek for 'body', soma is a powerful drug that users take to escape pain and bad memories with hallucinatory fantasies.
About Aldous Huxley
When I began reading this book, I thought Oh. My. God. What kind of book is this? About halfway through this book, I concluded that there was something very wrong with this author. Promiscuous sex? Feelies? I was outright disgusted at what this book was talking about. I do not like science fiction novels, and I was beginning to tire of this one.
Then John the Savage arrived into the tale. I thought, here is someone that could change people's minds about how they are living their life. He even got Helmholtz Watson to join his side. I was jumping for joy inside: everyone loves Helmholtz; they are bound to join John's side. That is what I thought, even hoped for. Lenina was close to giving up her ways of being promiscuous and staying with John. But I was wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong!
Chapter sixteen, in my opinion, made the most sense. The most sense of why the world was, and may turn out, that way. Religion needed to be taken out, family needed to disappear. People needed to feel happy about where they were. Books explaining otherwise needed to be banned. Getting rid of those and everything else created stability. Stability meant no wars and no poverty. My conclusion of Mustapha Mond's explaination to John: Communism that actually works.
This book was placed on the "Outstanding Books for the College Bound" List because it makes you think, plain and simple. Would our world really turn out this way? A hidden meaning in this book is possibly Communism, seeing as one of the character's last name is Marx.('Coincidence? I think not!' ~Alexandra Krueger)
I would most definitely recommend this book, but not to anyone who is younger than a sophmore. Even then, I do not know if a sophmore should read it. It would all depend on a person's maturity. Everyone should read about Aldous Huxley's outlook on the futrue of our world.
Works Cited:
1. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperCollins, 1932.
2. "Brave New World Propaganda" YouTube.com. 11 Nov. 2007. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bDDgKbYSbU>
3. Bald People Photo. 11 Nov. 2007. <http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2005/bravenewworld-stability.html>
4. Soma-Cola Photo. 11 Nov. 2007. <http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~slinder/BNW%20paper%20assignment.htm>
5. Aldous Huxley Photo. 11 Nov. 2007. <http://www.nndb.com/people/262/000059085/>
6. "Brave New World." Wikipedia. 10 Nov. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World>